April 3rd

At Sea

This morning’s talk was on “Penang at War” in preparation for our visit to Penang later this week. Although not all of the anecdotes he discussed were actually related to Penang itself, it was still a very interesting talk, and I learned a lot. Good exercise for the old brain!

To continue with our education we then went to Graham Jones talk on “The Music of Trooping the Colour”. I first went to see Trooping the Colour back in 1959, and thought it was the best thing ever, even better than changing guards at Buckingham Palace. Although I was very disappointed when I first saw the latter that Christopher Robin and Alice were nowhere to be found. It was interesting to find out how the music was chosen, and how the Queen had to approve it. He didn’t say what happened if she did not approve, I assume that she was usually OK with the choices made.

It is a hot and sunny day, so we went to the Lido pool grill and were lucky enough to get a table in the shade and had lunch there. Synergy was playing so it had a nice party atmosphere. Apparently their female vocalist has a medical problem with her voice, and will not be able to perform for several months. I felt really bad for her, it must be so frustrating not being able to sing. A replacement female vocalist will be joining us tomorrow.

In the afternoon there was the craft exhibition, tucked away in the Britannia Club dining room, so no one could find us. Anyway, our husbands did, and made all of the correct admiring comments. For some unknown reason, several of my projects are lost somewhere in the cabin, so were not available for display. However, I proudly exhibited what I could find. Most of the other women seem to be true artists, and it was great to see how well things can be done.

This is Maggie’s display

And this is mine.

With the Queen’s bust, the Queen Mother’s Standard, the QE2 silver model, the QE2 bell, and the builders’ plaque now safely on QM2 and heading for Dubai, I decided to see what had replaced them. Where the bell and plaque were outside of the Commodore Club, and the Standard was in the Queens Room, there are now empty spaces. The silver QE2 model has been changed for a model of the original Queen Elizabeth in the Yacht Club. It actually looks OK there, though of course I would prefer the QE2. The pedestal (plinth?) on which the bell had stood has been moved to the Queen’s Room where the bust was, and there are now 2 elephants having it out there instead of the Queen.

The elephants used to reside on a low table in the middle of the art gallery, and I have no idea how they survived, as I would almost knock them over on a daily basis as I passed through that space. Now they have taken up residence where the Queen should be, and actually don’t look too bad, except now no one will see that they are for sale. Such is life.

I decided that I really don’t need to worry about whether the elephants will be sold or not, and took myself out on to the balcony to read and listen to music while the sun slowly lost it’s fierce force, and gently settled down on the horizon. It was way too hazy to see a green flash, but it was very pretty anyway.

We were a foursome for dinner – just ourselves and Veronica and Norman. I hope we haven’t scared the other couple away. It is quite frustrating when you tablemates don’t arrive for dinner without giving you or your waiter advanced warning. I never know how long one should wait before going ahead and ordering without them. We ended up waiting quite a while, putting our waiter behind schedule.

Despite my resolve not to have dessert, somehow I ended up ordering one, and then eating all of it. Very frustrating. Hopefully I can walk off all of those calories in Singapore tomorrow.